Kerala style Salmon Fry | Air Fried

Good day to all my dear friends. I sincerely hope you all are doing well and staying safe at home wherever you are during this Coronovirus pandemic. Although 2020 had started off with a bang for us, it's in quite a grim state now, but we are trying to do our best. The last day my entire family went out was March 13th and we've been home ever since. Except for a quick trip to the pharmacy to collect our meds and to pick up online purchased grocery which wasn't home delivered, we haven't stepped out at all. With 2 small kids, we decided it's best to stay home no matter what. So we are staying home, spending time with the family, trying new recipes, working out, playing board/card games and doing our best to keep everyone happy and calm.

I do want to extend our gratitude and thanks to all the front line workers - all medical staff, grocery store workers, the people who did our online shopping and all other essential facility workers who continue to be brave and are helping keep things normal in this suddenly not-normal situation.  Be safe everyone!

With everyone at home all day all the time now and with no eating from outside anymore, I've definitely had to increase my cooking. I've started using several of my kitchen gadgets a lot more now...lol! and one of them is my 'Emerald' brand Air Fryer that I had bought during 2018 Thanksgiving and hardly used much. We do not do a lot of deep fried cooking or use a lot of oil in our dishes anyways, so never felt a need to use the air fryer, but gave it a try to make this Fish Fry which pretty much turned out like it had been deep fried ;-) But I used no oil at all...except for greasing the tray. Salmon by itself has enough oil in the fish to nicely crisp it up.

The recipe is really simple and Salmon fry makes a great side dish with Rice, Carrot thoran or Beetroot thoran and some pulishery...yum!!

Kerala style Salmon Fry | Air Fried

You’ll need

1 Lb Salmon, cut into cubes

For Marination:

1 Tablespoon Red Chilli powder

1 teaspoon Turmeric Powder

1 teaspoon Black pepper powder

1 Tablespoon Ginger-Garlic paste

Lemon juice (as needed)

Salt as needed

Directions:

1. Mix all the ingredients under marination with enough lemon juice to form a smooth paste. The marination paste should not be runny.(Can substitute lemon juice with water)

2. Coat the salmon cubes well with the marination paste and let it marinate for atleast 30mins-1hour.

3. Pre-heat the airfryer for 10mins. The air Fryer I use sets the temperature to 360F for Seafood.

4. Grease the tray/basket of the air fryer and add the salmon pieces making sure to not over crowd the tray. Best to air fry in small batches depending on number of pieces.

5. Air-fry for 20 mins , turning sides halfway for a nice crust.

If not using Air-Fryer:

Heat 2-3 Tablespoons of vegetable Oil or Coconut oil in a shallow frying pan and fry the marinated salmon pieces on both sides until salmon is cooked and gets a nice brown crust.

-Manju

Parippu Pradhaman | Onam Special

Wishing all my lovely readers a very Happy and Prosperous Onam! This year my parents are here with us and that makes everything so much more special. 

Daddy's pradhaman (Payasam/Kheer prepared with jaggery) preparations are very popular at home. Both my dad and my father-in-law are in-charge of the payasam preparations during festival season. They put in a lot of effort into the preparations and the payasams always taste amazing. I tried getting Manish to watch and learn how it is made, but I'm sure that didn't work as much...lol! Daddy already made Ada Pradhaman a month back for no special occasion as such. It was so good! It was so good that I was too busy savoring it that I forgot to take a pic for sharing it with you all. ;-)

So last weekend when he made this delicious Parippu Pradhaman/Payasam for an Onam potluck with our friends, I knew it has to come on the blog for me and you all to drool over and prepare in future. :-)

Daddy likes to make his Parippu Pradhaman with split yellow moong dal. Jaggery, Coconut milk and some flavorful spices makes this payasam very unique and apt for serving as a special occasion sweet dish. It's a very easy recipe and tastes divine.  I have tried my best to explain the recipe in detail and almost as exactly as Daddy made it. 

You can see the concentration on Daddy's face as he prepares his signature Parippu Pradhaman ;-)

Parippu Pradhaman

Serves: 3-4

You'll Need

1 cup yellow split Moong Dal

2 cups water

2 cups Jaggery

2 Tablespoons Water

2 cups Coconut Milk (if using canned coconut milk)

3 cups water 

½ teaspoon dry Ginger powder

½ teaspoon Cumin powder

½ teaspoon Cardamom powder

2 Tablespoons Dry Coconut slices

2 Tablespoons sliced Cashew nuts

2 Tablespoons Ghee

Directions:

1. In a heavy bottomed pan roast split Moong Dal until it is golden brown and fragrant.

2. Add 2 cups water (or enough to cook the dal) and cook the dal until it gets soft but not overcooked/mushy.

3. While the dal cooks, in a separate frying pan, heat 2 Tablespoons Ghee and fry the coconut slices until golden brown. Next fry the cashew nuts and keep both aside.

4. Melt Jaggery in a pan with 2-3 tablespoons of water. Strain and keep aside.

5. Once dal cooks well, add the melted jaggery and cook the dal-jaggery mix until jaggery thickens and almost reaches a string like consistency over low heat (when a drop of jaggery syrup is pinched between fingers it should stick and form a thin thread)

6. Divide the 2 cups Coconut milk into 1 cup, ¾ cup and ¼ cup each – which we call 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd milk.

- Into the 1 cup coconut milk, add 2 cups water – keep aside (1^st milk)

- Into the ¾ cup coconut milk, add 1 cup water – keep aside (2^nd milk)

- Into the ½ cup milk add Cardamom, Cumin and Ginger powders – keep aside (3^rd milk)

7. Now add the 1^st milk into the dal-jaggery mix and cook over medium-low heat until the mix thickens.

8. Then add the 2^nd milk and continue to cook until the payasam reaches a good consistency. It will thicken as it cools so don't thicken it too much while cooking.

9. Finally add the 3^rd milk, stir well and turn off the heat.

10. Garnish with fried coconut slices and cashew nuts – delicious Parippu Pradhaman is ready. Serve warm or cold. Enjoy it as is or with small banana and pappadam …yumm!

Once again wishing everyone a very Happy Onam, from our family to yours! 

-Manju

Sukhiyan, sweet lentil fritters....a Kerala special snack!

When I think of Sukhiyan I remember Sreeja ammayi's mom. Vanaja aunty is always called as Shasthamangalathile aunty, she is so often called that that I sometimes have no clue what her real name is ;-) Shashthamangalam is a place in Trivandrum, Kerala and Vanaja aunty lives there with her husband. 

Her daughter, our Sreeja ammayi is Manish's mom's brother's wife....Well, anyways Manish's family have been family friends with them for a very very long time and later became relatives and the friendship still stands strong.

After Manish and I got married we had gone to their home several times and every time we went there aunty was ready with Sukhiyan. I love these sweet lentil fritters but these are so rarely made in my home and even in local bakeries it's a rare find these days. So whenever she made them for us with a cup of sweet hot tea, I couldn't resist enjoying myself to a good bunch of these!

Even if we go there unannounced in the middle of the day, she'll make something quickly and would never let us leave without eating and Sukhiyan was almost always her go-to palaharam to make, I just love such people who attracts you with food ;-)

Even though I really enjoyed eating them I never tried making them at home. When my sis-in-law, Malli came home for a vacation, she decided to make these. I was simply excited and went about clicking pics as she made them. So, these were technically made by her and they were super yumm! She even calls them Modakam, so apparently it has a lot of names :)

I have no clue of the origin of it's name but it is popularly called Sukhiyan or Suhiyan and it is a very simple and easy snack to make. Boiled green moong daal is mixed with melted jaggery that's flavored with a pinch of elaichi (cardamom powder), rolled into balls, dipped in batter and deep fried. I could just eat the rolled lentil balls as it is, but there's nothing like a crispy fritter :-) The batter is the same as the one used for Pazhampozhi (plantain fritters).

The ratio of Green moong dal to Jaggery is approx 2:1 respectively. We don't measure it exactly but just add enough melted jaggery that'll help the cooked lentils stick together and form a ball easily. Some like to flavor the jaggery with cardamom powder, dried ginger powder, cinnamon etc...but I prefer it simply flavored with a little cardamom powder. A cup of hot sweet tea and a bowlful of these Sukhiyan...aaah! Let me daydream for a moment :)

Sukhiyan, sweet lentil fritters

You’ll need

1 cup Boiled Green lentils (Moong daal)

½ cup melted Jaggery
½ cup fresh grated Coconut

¼ tsp cardamom powder

For batter

1 cup  All purpose flour (Maida)

1 Tblsp Rice Flour (Ari podi)

¼ tsp Turmeric powder

1 tsp Sugar

A pinch of Salt

¼ cup Water (more or less as needed)

Oil for deep frying

Directions

1. Cook the Green moong daal: Soak the moong daal in cold water for ½ hour. Add to a pressure cooker with enough water to immerse the daal and Pressure cook for 1 whistle. Turn off the heat after 1 whistle and let it cool down by itself. Once cooled open the lid and check if the daal is cooked. Drain off any excess water.

2. Melt the jaggery in a hot pan and add ¼ tsp cardamom powder for flavor. Add the grated coconut and mix well and keep aside to cool slightly. (If you feel the jaggery might be gritty, strain it and then add grated coconut)

3. Make the batter by mixing together all-purpose flour, rice flour, turmeric powder, sugar and salt with enough water to form a smooth batter. Batter should neither be too runny nor too thick.

4. Mix the cooked green moong daal with the melted jaggery and mix together gently. While still warm  start rolling them into equal sized balls .

5.  Heat oil for deep frying and once ready, dip each moong daal ball into the batter and immerse into hot oil. Fry until they turn golden brown.

6. Serve the Sukhiyan hot with a nice cup of hot tea/coffee :)

 

Hope you'll be tempted to try these someday. It's really good and despite the frying, I like to think I'm eating a protein rich snack ;-) My little son too enjoyed these and I want to try making more naadan palaharam for him to show him the food his parents grew up eating and enjoying :-)

-Manju

Kerala style Egg Stew

Hope you all had a fun Diwali and Halloween and now waiting for Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year...well lots to look forward to :-) But this cold weather has numbed my thoughts in the blogging arena. I have tons of recipe all half-written and some posts drafted away with only pictures and I just donno when I'll ever come to posting them. I just can't think of anything to write :-) Apparently for me the easiest part is writing the recipe, atleast that's something. I will share everything all in good time, until then let's just enjoy this creamy Egg stew.

Kerala style stew made with coconut milk is best served with soft spongy Appams. We also enjoy these with Kallapam, plain white/brown Bread or even with Idiappam....ok! my mouth is watering now. Who wants to make me any of these right now...with some stew ofcourse? :-)

I've heard that many people find it difficult to make a perfect hard boiled egg. I've never faced that situation (call it luck or whatever), but my mom taught me a  technique and ever since I've never ever had failed hard-boiled eggs. They get boiled perfectly and are never over-boiled or rubbery. So let's get to the technique for making perfect hard boiled eggs and to the recipe for this awesome Egg stew.

Don't get scared seeing the list of ingredients, its not much but all this together makes the perfect stew and it's just worth it.

Egg Stew with Coconut Milk

You’ll Need

4-5 Hard boiled eggs

1 Carrot (cubed)

1 Potato (cubed)

½ cup Green Peas

1 large Onion (diced)

2 Green chillies (slit lengthwise)

1 Tblsp Ginger (grated or thinly sliced)

1 Tblsp Garlic (grated or thinly sliced)

1 Cinnamon stick

2 Green cardamom

2 Cloves

1 tsp Black peppercorns

2 dry Red Chillies (optional)

1 sprig Curry Leaves (5-8 leaves)

½ tsp Garam masala

½ tsp Corriander powder

2 cups Canned Coconut Milk

1 Tblsp Oil

Directions

How to Hard-boil Eggs

1. Fill a saucepan with cold water and immerse the eggs into the water. The water should be above the level of the eggs.

2. Keep over high flame/heat and bring the water to a boil. When the water comes to a rolling boil, turn off the heat, cover the saucepan with a lid and let the eggs rest for 10mins.

3. After 10 mins drain away the water and gently peel away the egg shell. Keep aside the Hard-boiled eggs.

To prepare Egg stew

1. Heat oil in a pan and sauté the whole spices until fragrant (cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and black pepper, dry red chillies)

2. Add the curry leaves, ginger, garlic, green chillies and onions and sauté until onions are soft.

3. Add potato, carrots, green peas along with 1 cup coconut milk and cook until potato is soft.

4. Turn the heat to low and mix the spice powders (garam masala and coriander powder) with remaining 1 cup coconut milk and add it to the stew.

5. Add the boiled eggs (slit in half if preferred) to the stew and cook on low heat for 5 mins.

Serve it yumm and hot with some Appam or Kallappam or Bread!!!

Notes:

1. I like to add all these veggies when I make stew, you could just make this egg stew with just eggs and potatoes if you like, but I love the added color.

2. Do not brown the onions, just saute until soft and translucent.

I love anything that's cooked in coconut milk and curry leaves, the aroma, the flavor ....everything....yumm. Appam with Egg stew is a common breakfast dish at my home specially over weekends. The stew isn'y overly spicy yet has a lot of flavor. Even lilttle kids enjoy it and yes Lil'Appu eats it with relish! 

Anyways as we are discussing stew today, let me share, we had a Halloween Cook-Off at our office which was a potluck and competition, and I took my favorite Chicken Stew and guess what, I came second in the non-traditional food category...yaaay. Happy Dance!!

-Manju

Spicy Beef Curry with Spinach...easy Pressure cooker method

How many of you make New Year’s resolutions? I never make b’coz for me they just end up being January resolutions…yeah, hardly ever stick on to it beyond a month. But I know I used to make resolutions when I was a kid, like ‘this year I’ll improve my handwriting’, or ‘this year I’ll top the class’ and all such kinda stuff but it just lost its charm as I grew older I guess.

Now 'This year' there are few things that I plan to do and hopefully I’ll see if I can stick on to them. Some people believe in not sharing their wishes to others thinking it might get jinxed and not work, and I belong to such a category, so I won’t share them here now but if they work I’ll definitely be sharing them :-) They are not resolutions or anything but few things that I learnt from mistakes made last year which I want to correct and get better at this year…Opportunities that I missed/lost/foolishly did not take up last year which I want to this year….and the list quite goes on, but I don’t think they are un-doable ;-)

This year I want to also include several different cuisines to my list of recipes. I love trying out all sort of cuisines as long as everything I’m eating is fully cooked…NO raw sushi or rare cooked meat for me plssss! And I do cook/experiment with a variety of cuisines at home, but most of my experiments are done at night either after I come home from work or weekend dinners, so photographing them is a challenge. I’m trying to find a solution to this as living in Minnesota, especially during winters, getting enough light after 3pm can be a challenge and I want to be able to click whenever I want and not just when the dear Sun decides to show up. So that’s one or two agendas on my list. 

Anyways, enough of my ramblings for today. Today’s dish is a simple, quick to cook and yummy to eat naadan (homestyle) Beef curry. I don’t cook much beef or pork at home, though we eat them at restaurants etc, we are more of the chicken and fish eaters at home, but occasionally I do buy beef and I like cooking them in our typical Kerala style preparations with roasted spices and coconut slices  and to make it a teeny bit healthier I added lots of baby spinach. 
I prefer to buy the stew cut meat as they cook easily and are soft. And a pressure cooker makes life so much easier :-)

The Beef curry is spicy and flavorful, go ahead and check out the recipe

Kerala style Beef curry with Spinach

You’ll need

Stew cut Beef meat – 1lb or ½ kg (cut into smaller pieces)

Baby Spinach (roughly chopped) – 2 cups

For tempering:

Oil – 2 Tblsp

Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp

Curry leaves – 1 sprig (8-10 leaves)

Dry red chilli – 1 or 2 broken

Coconut thinly sliced – 1 Tblsp

Remaining ingredients:

Red Onion (thinly sliced) – 1 big or 2 medium

Green chillies (slit lengthwise)- 1 or 2

Ginger (thinly sliced or grated) – 1” piece

Garlic cloves (sliced or grated) – 5 or 6
Tomato (chopped) – 1 medium

Red chilli powder – 2 tsp

Corriander powder – 2 Tblsp

Garam masala – 2 tsp

Turmeric powder – ½ tsp

Black pepper powder – ½ tsp

Salt – to taste

Water – as needed for gravy

Corriander leaves – for garnish (optional)

Directions

1. Heat oil in your pressure cooker and crack mustard seeds. Once they start spluttering, add the cumin seeds, curry leaves, dry red chilli and coconut slices and fry until coconut slices are mildly brown.

2.  Add Ginger-Garlic-Green chillies and sauté for a minute, then add Red Onions, a pinch of salt and cook until the Onions soften.

3.  Add tomatoes and sauté again for a minute.

4.  Add all the spice powders: Red chilli powder, Corriander powder, Garam masala, Turmeric powder, Black pepper powder and enough salt and mix and cook everything until the raw smell of the spices wear off (2 mins)

5.  Mix in the beef and enough water as per gravy required (I added ¼ cup water) and cover the pressure cooker, put on the whistle and cook for 3-4 whistle blows.

6.  Turn off the heat and let the pressure cooker cool down and then remove the whistle and open the cooker. Add the baby spinach and mix everything. Garnish with coriander leaves if desired.

Few suggestions:

1. You could use Ginger-Garlic paste instead of fresh ginger & garlic.

2. If using regular raw spinach, sauté it separately in a pan and add it to the beef. Baby spinach can be eaten raw so it doesn’t matter if included without cooking it separately.
3. I prefer a thick gravy so added only ¼ cup water, you can add more if you want a runny gravy but note that the beef will release a bit of moisture while cooking which adds to the gravy content.
4. I use Kashmiri Red Chilli powder which is milder in spice but gives a gorgeous reddish-brown color to your dish. 

Look at that lush gravy...yumm! We ate this with some kerala matta rice, beetroot thoran and moru curry and it was a quick and yummy lunch. But the curry pairs very well even with Appam, Idiappam, Chapathi, Porotta, Naan, Basmati rice...even bread etc.
My lil’one wasn’t very keen on trying the spicy dish but I hope he will develop a taste to it as he grows :-)

-Manju

Kallappam - fermented rice pancakes, super soft and white as clouds!

What makes weekends special at our place, apart from the fact of getting to sleep in late are the elaborate breakfasts. Apparently I have always had the excuse of being a working person and now a working mom for not getting enough time to prepare elaborate breakfasts on regular weekdays, making it mostly breakfasts on the run! So weekends are something I myself look forward to, to experiment in the kitchen and actually relax and enjoy a decent  breakfast/brunch with my family.

Even if its making a simple dosa I like to try different varieties, one example is the Instant Rava dosa which I make often. Or else we are open to trying Omelettes, Pancakes, French toasts , sandwiches or homemade bread varieties etc and any authentic and naadan kerala breakfast items are always welcome and everyone’s favorite!

Such was the case when what was planned to become a simple Palappam for our Saturday breakfast turned out to be become a very popular keralite dish called Kallappam. Kallappam is a form of rice pancake in which ‘Kallu’ (toddy or palm wine) is used for fermenting the batter. The unique sour taste of toddy along with some garlic, shallots, cumin and grated coconut ground together with soaked rice or rice flour gives these pancakes a very distinct flavor. These days if toddy is not easily available Yeast is used as a substitute to ferment the batter.  

I used yeast for fermenting my batter and they turned out to be really flavorful, spongy and like a friend on facebook mentioned ‘white and soft as clouds’. They tasted quite nice even without any side dishes but my mom quickly made our favorite Potato Stew and added some boiled egg in it as well to serve along with the Kalappam.  Even spicy Egg masala or Chicken curry or Chicken stew would be a good choice to serve with this Kallappam.

It was a super duper hit at our home, specially b'coz my little guy ate two whole appams without even needing to run behind him to eat them. 

Now for some after breakfast activities....Lawn mowing has become one of our weekends tasks of late apart from cleaning the house and laundry. My dad actually seems to enjoy it more than us. So while I was busy taking Kallappam photographs, daddy was busy mowing our lawn...look at his green hands ;-) 

Few of our neighbors and their pet dogs stopped by to say Hi seeing us outside. I wonder what they thought about all the food kept out to be photographed :-P   

Anyway, I went about taking snaps of my freshly bloomed roses and of the newly found Lilac tree almost hidden behind our house. The Lilac flowers smelled amazing. Oh! and not to forget our little garden patch slowly bringing out their fruit. Our tomato is still green but looks promising. 

I had posted a pic on facebook via instagram while I was making these Kallappams, asking my readers and friends to guess the dish and I got such a lovely response. You all just made my day even more special!!  And here’s the recipe for you all.  Try it out and I bet you will enjoy it as much as we did.

This recipe prepares around 15-20 or more medium pancake sized Kallappams.

Kallappam

You’ll need

Yeast – 1 ½ tsp

Warm water – 2 tblsp (to soak the yeast)

Sugar – 2 tblsp

Rava (Sooji/ Semolina) – 3 tblsp

Water – ½ cup

Raw Rice – 3 cups (I used Idli rice)

Fresh grated Coconut – 2 cups

Shallots or pearl onions – 3 or 4

Garlic cloves – 4 or 5

Cumin seeds – 1 tsp

Water – as needed to make a thick batter

Salt – as needed

Directions

1. Soak the rice in water for about 6-8 hrs or overnight.  Drain away the excess water later.

2. Soak the Yeast in some warm water and let it foam.

3. Make Rava Kappi or Kurukku by bringing ½ cup water to a boil and add 3 tblsp rava and cook it until it forms a thick pudding like consistency. Keep aside to cool.

4. In a mixer grinder or blender, grind together the grated coconut, cumin seeds, shallots and garlic along with water. Need not finely grind.

5. Grind the rice with enough water, making sure the batter is thick like idly batter (or as thick as than pancake batter)

6. Add the yeast, 2 tblsp sugar, rava kappi and the ground up coconut-cumin-garlic-shallot mixture into the rice batter and mix gently and keep it in a draft free and warm spot and allow to ferment for atleast 4-5 hrs or overnight.

7. Once fermented add enough salt and mix gently.

8. Heat a non-stick pan or cast-iron dosa pan and spray some oil on it. Pour a small ladle full of batter (about ¼ cup) on the pan and do not spread it. Cover and cook until bubbles are formed on the top and it looks done. Flip to the other side and cook for a minute.

9. Serve hot and thick Kallappams with preferred side dish or enjoy it plain.

Suggestions:

1. If you want to avoid grinding rice, use Rice flour. Use 3-4 cups Rice flour and add the remaining ingredients with enough water to make a thick idli like batter.

2. I used Instant yeast, but I still let it ferment overnight as the flavors mingle more as the batter sits. 

3. A suggestion I got from a reader was to grind 1 cup cooked rice along with 2 cups raw rice to get more softer Kallappams (mine was pretty soft without adding cooked rice,but its a good option)

-Manju